Druid Mysteries

by Philip Carr-Gomm

  The Druids whose activities are known to us by the records of the classical authors met, worked and taught in circular or oval shaped clearings in the forest – which became their sacred groves. These were known by the Celtic term Nemeton. Tacitus in Germania wrote, ‘The grove is the centre of their whole religion. It is regarded as the cradle of the race and the dwelling-place of the supreme god to whom all things are subject and obedient.’ For these Druids, the trees marked the boundaries of their circle, and stored the power generated within it. It was they who stood as guardians of the sanctuary.

  The earlier or proto-Druids created their sanctuaries by building circles of stones. For the past eighty or more years, many conventional archaeologists have disputed this claim – rejecting the idea that circles such as Stonehenge and Avebury ever had any connection with the Druids. But as we have seen in Chapter 2, with the revised understanding of the development of Celticity in Britain, it now seems quite reasonable to view the Druid not only as a Celtic figure of authority during the classical period, but also as the representative of a body of religious beliefs and practices that existed from perhaps as long ago as 7000 BC up until the fifth century AD – after which it went ‘underground’ before re-emerging through the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the light of this understanding, as John Michell points out in the opening quotation of this chapter, a growing body of scholars now accept that the circles were built by the precursors of the Druids of classical antiquity, a group which can be termed proto-Druids.

  Figure 3. Stonehenge, which has been called variously the Great Circle (Cor Gaur in ancient Cymric), the Choir of Giants (Cathoir Ghall in Gaelic) and the Giants’ Dance (Chorea Giganteum in Latin)

  The stone circles of these early Druids intrigue us – they are powerful and mysterious and call us to contemplation. To understand why they were built – their purpose and meaning – we need to look at where they were built.

  In 1922 a Hereford man, Alfred Watkins, announced in a paper read to the town’s Woolhope Society that he had re-discovered an ancient system of trackways, which he called leys or ley-lines. He had found that ancient sacred sites, such as standing stones, circles and tumuli, sacred trees and holy wells, could be connected by straight lines which extend for many miles. He discovered that these often coincided with prehistoric tracks, which were used in those times when people travelled across country, finding their way by walking from one landmark to the next. He found that a notch had been cut into the ridge of a hill, or a cairn had been built to act as a marker, when the landscape interfered with the travellers’ view of the next landmark. In time, churches were built on many of these sites, old stone crosses raised, and roads built along the trackways – so that the pattern can still be observed, plotted and even walked by those who are willing to trace the lines on an Ordnance Survey map or to follow one of the guides now available.

  But the lines were not simply an early road system. The fact that the connecting points for the tracks were often sacred places shows us that there was not yet a separation between the sacred and the profane. The utilitarian purpose of travelling was still indissolubly connected with a recognition of the sacredness of the earth and of life. The trackways probably originated in the Neolithic period, between 4000 and 2500 BC and seem to have been influenced by a sophisticated understanding of geomancy.

  MANIFESTATIONS OF THE GREAT SPIRIT

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  Geomancy is known throughout the world and it can be understood as the art and science which determines the correct siting of temples, sacred circles, tombs and monuments in relation to the forces of heaven and earth. It is a knowledge of the sacredness of the earth. One of its basic tenets is that the earth carries currents of vital energy which flows in lines, just as the body carries currents of subtle energy – known to the Chinese acupuncturists as chi.

  The subtle energy that runs in lines across the earth can, to some extent, be measured. It comprises the electrical and magnetic currents which travel the earth’s surface, and the radiations which emanate from underground water and mineral veins. These are the comprehensible sources of their existence, but Druidry points also to another dimension of their nature as manifestations of the life-force, of the Great Spirit. As such, they are conceived as pathways of spirit, and when walked in consciousness can refresh, renew and change us. This is one of the inner purposes of pilgrimage.

  All over the territory associated with the ancient Druids – Britain, Ireland and Brittany – at significant points along these arteries of the Earth Spirit, often at junctions where several meet, we find the stone circles. Not only are they sited on leys or at junctions of leys, but they also display a number of other unusual characteristics. Dowsers have always claimed that the circles are located at spots which emit strong radiations, often finding them placed over the meeting points of underground streams.45 Over the last twenty years, a team of geologists, terrestrial magnetism and earth-science specialists have been researching these sites for more specific information on their unusual characteristics.46 By 1990 over forty stone circles had been tested with magnetometers and other instruments and they have all, without exception, been found to display anomalous natural energies when compared with their immediate surroundings. All the sites were found to be directly above or very near geological fault lines. This results in an intensification of the currents in the earth’s magnetic field at these places.

  Other discoveries were made. The granite in Cornwall emits such radiation in the form of the radioactive gas radon that houses in certain areas must be built with diffusers to protect the inhabitants’ health. When the stone circles of Cornwall were tested, it was found that they acted as sanctuaries from this harmful radiation, their structure somehow creating a natural barrier or shield. Such a ‘sanctuary’ effect has been noted by other researchers, but in a different way. In 1972 a zoologist who was hunting for bats at dawn one morning found his ultrasound detector indicating a rapid and regular pulse of a powerful high-frequency signal. He allowed the detector to guide him to the source of the signal, and found himself standing at a megalithic site without a bat in sight.

  The Institute of Archaeology at Oxford followed up the zoologist’s observation, finding significant patterns of ultrasound at several sites with standing stones.47 They were strongest at dawn each day, but rose to a particularly powerful emission that lasted for several hours on the mornings of the spring and autumn equinoxes.

  In addition to this ability of certain standing stones to sound out a note, albeit inaudible to our ears, the Oxford research also discovered that a stone circle, such as Stonehenge, could also sometimes act as an ultrasonic barrier – creating complete ultrasonic silence within the circle. Again we see the circle as a place of sanctuary, as a place in which we can go to find peace and silence within.

  THE DRUID STAR WISDOM

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  Being located at places of unusual power on the earth’s surface is only half the reason why stone circles are where they are, and why they were built in their particular way. At the beginning of the last century Sir Norman Lockyer, the astronomer and scientist and founder of Nature magazine, initiated the study of stone circles for their astronomical orientations. On holiday in Greece, he remembered that churches were traditionally orientated towards the point of sunrise on the feast day of their patron saint, and he decided to see whether orientation was a significant factor in the Greek temples he was visiting. His researches intrigued him and led to his determination to study the orientation of the older structures of Egypt. He travelled there in 1891 and discovered that the temple of Amon-Ra at Karnak faced the setting sun of the midsummer solstice – not in his day, but by calculation, in about 3700 BC, when the last rays of the sun would have entered the inner sanctuary at the end of the temple avenue.

  The orientation of Stonehenge towards the midsummer sunrise and the midwinter sunset was already well known – both events being visible from the centre of the circle through the nar
row stone gateways of the trilithons. This led Lockyer to research Stonehenge and other megalithic sites, resulting in his publication of Stonehenge and other British Stone Monuments Astronomically Considered in 1906. The main conclusion that he drew from his research was that the earliest sites were laid out to mark sunrise or sunset at the times of the old Celtic cross-quarter day festivals discussed in Chapter 7. Sometimes the sites would indicate the transit of ‘warning’ stars that signalled the sun’s appearance at these times.

  This fact in itself is strong evidence for the idea that the Celtic Druids received their knowledge from the earlier proto-Druids – the megalithic builders – since the very stones themselves show that these pre-Celts were honouring those special times of the year which later continued to be recognised by Celtic society, and later still, by co-option, even by Christianity. Lockyer also found that later constructions were oriented to mark the solstices – by about 1600 BC this had become the general practice among the circle builders.

  Lockyer initiated an impulse to study the astronomical orientations of stone circles which was taken up by, among others, the astronomer Gerald Hawkins of Boston University. In 1965 Hawkins published Stonehenge Decoded, in which he detailed his discovery that by computing the extreme seasonal positions of the sun and moon in 1500 BC ten of the sighting lines and stone alignments of the monument pointed to solar positions and fourteen to lunar ones. He also proposed the idea that the fifty-six Aubrey holes at Stonehenge were used to mark the fifty-six years of the moon’s eclipse cycle. The archaeologist Professor Atkinson attempted to debunk the idea that Stonehenge could have been constructed with these sophisticated functions in mind, but was converted to astroarchaeology, as it has come to be called, after studying the work of Professor Alexander Thom.48 An engineer, Thom had made accurate surveys of several hundred circles and megalithic sites all over Britain. In studying these surveys, he came to the conclusion that they were all meticulously designed according to a unified standard or canon of geometry that seemed closely related to the system of mathematics that we know as Pythagorean.

  Since Pythagoras taught over a thousand years after the construction of these sites, it seems that the claim made by Clement of Alexandria in the second century that Pythagoras learned his science and philosophy from the Druids, rather than vice versa, may not be so unlikely after all. There is a Druid adage that the truth is ‘written in the stones’. It seems that the astro-archaeologists have at last begun to decipher this writing that has remained incomprehensible for so long.

  In addition to apparently knowing the secrets of Pythagorean geometry, all the classical writers agree that the Druids were well versed in a knowledge of astronomy. Pomponius Mela tells us that they knew ‘the movements of the heavens and of the stars’, and that they understood the relationship between the moon and the tides. The writer Jordanes quotes a lost work of the fifth century, which refers to a wise man called Dicenus who lived in the first century, and whom scholars believe was probably a Druid. Of his tribe it was said that they knew, in addition to the names of 365 stars, ‘the course of the twelve signs of the zodiac, and of the planets passing through them and the whole of astronomy’. This statement is substantiated by the fact that when Dicenus was said to be living, the Coligny calendar was in use in Gaul, and as Beresford Ellis says in The Druids: ‘Produced before the Roman conquest of Gaul, this calendar is far more elaborate than the rudimentary Julian calendar and has a highly sophisticated five-year synchronisation of lunation with the solar year. It is a masterpiece of calendrical calculation and a practical demonstration of the proof of Cicero’s claim as to the astronomical ability of the Druids.’

  Today, Druids will often practise or study astrology, combining conventional Western astrology with their understanding of Druid star lore, and some astrologers have developed Celtic astrological systems, building on the association of the sacred trees with the lunar months alluded to in modern times by Robert Graves.49

  To return to a consideration of the stone circles, some commentators have assumed that they were used as observatories – Neolithic astronomical computers that were used to predict lunar eclipses and to indicate the correct times for festivals and for sowing and harvesting. But to see them in this way is to understand only a small part of their purpose. Knowing that they were orientated with reference to the sun, moon and certain stars, and that they were laid out with an understanding of sacred geometry, we need then to remember that they were positioned at key points on the energy system of the earth. Their location on leys and at ley junctions combined with their orientations to the heavens rendered them able to act as ‘receiving stations’ for direct influences from heavenly constellations especially at certain seasons of the year. Ceremonies performed there would be immensely powerful when the Spirit of Time united with the Spirit of Place within a sanctuary created not only by the underlying geology and overarching constellations, but also by the fact that the leys, the arteries, of the Earth Spirit could both bring power to the site and also distribute the power generated there across the land.

  The men and women who built and worked with these circles were clearly remarkable people. Not only did they accomplish the engineering feats necessary for their construction, but they performed these within the constraints of a sophisticated geometry and science of measurement.50 This they combined with an understanding of energy fields to determine each circle’s location, and with an understanding of astronomy to determine the siting of its individual stones.

  The stones themselves were chosen with great care – often necessitating lengthy journeys from quarry to site (even when different types of stone were closer to hand but clearly deemed unsuitable). These early builders understood the different qualities of stone in ways that we are only just beginning to comprehend. We now know, for instance, that quartz rocks attract and store earth magnetism and electricity, and this would explain why many of the stone circles include stones with quartz.

  THE POWER OF SOUND AND LIGHT

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  As if the capacities of the early Druids already outlined were not enough, they showed an ability with their building of these circles to create sanctuaries of silence, wombs of timelessness surrounded by time-marking stones, and an ability to use the play of light and shadow – of sunlight and moonbeams – in a way that marks them out as our culture’s first theatrical lighting designers and technicians. It must have been immensely dramatic for the Druid initiate to witness the sun rising between the trilithons at Stonehenge, or entering the inner sanctuary at New Grange in Ireland at the winter solstice – the finger of the dawn ray gradually illuminating the rear chamber. The builders of the circles and tumuli knew that light and shadow were profoundly important, not only in the way that human consciousness can be affected by the drama of these natural phenomena, but also because they represent the two aspects of duality which are in fact one: out of darkness is born the light and without light we could not comprehend its opposite, darkness. In the chamber of the New Grange tumulus the candidate for initiation would have waited in total obscurity within the womb of the earth at the time of the longest night of the winter to experience a ritual rebirth as the dawn rays of the rising midwinter sun pierced the back of the chamber, heralding the rebirth of the year.

  Recent work has revealed the unusual acoustic properties of some megalithic monuments. Certain chambers, such as at New Grange, produce ‘standing waves’ of sound, and some researchers now believe that rituals within these chambers would have utilised these acoustic effects to enhance the sound of their chanting and drumming.51

  THE SONGS OF OUR ANCESTORS ARE ALSO THE SONGS OF OUR CHILDREN

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  No stone circles were built after 1000 BC. We can find a number of reasons for this. There are remains of over a thousand circles to be found in Britain and Ireland. Bearing in mind that many have been destroyed by farmers clearing land, or Christians removing pagan idols, we can assume that by 1000 BC there must have been many more
than the one thousand now extant. It is therefore conceivable that, as saturation level was reached, the motive to build any more began to diminish. It is unlikely, however, that this was the only or even the real reason for the circles’ demise. Climatic changes at this time had begun to force people off marginal land and the resulting competition for agriculturally fertile territory resulted in strife and instability, forcing communities to turn away from constructing or expanding stone circles and instead to create defensive structures and manufacture weapons. As an example of this, we can see evidence that the expansion of the Stonehenge complex ceased at about the turn of the millennium when construction work on a great two-mile earthwork-flanked avenue came to an abrupt halt.

  The ‘classical’ Druids, whose existence only began to be recorded in the first century BC, met in sacred groves and not in stone circles. The sacred circle was moved from the guardianship of stones to that of trees. Whether or not the old stone circles were ever used by these Druids we may never know, but as Revival Druidry gained momentum, the circles began to be used once again by Druid groups from the nineteenth century onwards, and new stone circles are now built every year in Britain, sometimes in conjunction with camps and workshops to explore the metaphysics and engineering involved in their construction. Today, if you unexpectedly come across a stone circle, it could be ancient or it could be very new. Perhaps the best known of these new circles is on the farm used each year for the Glastonbury music festival – symbolising perfectly the way in which these archetypal symbols from our ancient past appeal to young people today and are now being reborn. Truly ‘the songs of our ancestors are also the songs of our children’.52